City's slot business helps transportation center stay on track

At the same time Las Vegas city officials are studying ways to limit the expansion of gambling into the city's neighborhoods, Las Vegas itself is grossing $100,000 from gaming operations each year.

This revenue comes from 15 slot machines in the Downtown Transportation Center, a bus and trolley depot at 320 Casino Center Blvd. that serves between 6 million and 7 million people each year.

The transportation center's slot machines are the only machines from which the city receives direct gambling revenues, officials said.

"As far as direct participation in the proceeds ... this is the only place we have them," said Bob Hasegawa, manager of transportation services for the city.

The city also makes money from pay phones and concessions like a McDonald's restaurant, he said.

The Transportation Center slot revenues are separate from the $287,000 the city receives from slot machine operators throughout the city in the form of annual license fees.

The Transportation Center slots are operated by outside companies, which receive the other half of the $200,000 the machines take in each year. United Coin Machine Co. recently won a bid to run the Transportation Center slots. It will take over operations from Games In Nevada. United Coin's application to operate the slots will be heard by the Nevada Gaming Control Board this week.

Proceeds from the slots fund the center's operation, Hasegawa said.

"If we didn't have the slot machines, we'd have to find $100,000 a year in some kind of tax or subsidy," he said.

Cathy Hanson, a spokeswo-man for Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones, said the city's receipt of slot revenues does not contradict Jones' goal of limiting the expansion of gambling in the city's neighborhoods. For one thing, Hanson said, the Transportation Center is not in a neighborhood, it is downtown, near several casinos.

"It's in a gaming district," Hanson said. "What Jan is talking about is gaming in neighborhoods."

The Transportation Center slots actually serve a civic purpose, Hanson said.

"We use that money to subsidize public transportation," she said.

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